I’m being perfectly honest when I tell you that I don’t remember when this track was produced or even that it was. I came across it on an old CD of my productions and it was (and remains) unmarked. So here it is, a rare untitled track and I must say that I don’t dislike it. Its a raw track that sort of resembles Clusterfuck and Fake House, both of which were featured here recently.
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Far Off Course is a weird, crossover track from 2001. It starts out with some broken beats and then morphs into a smooth driving adventure.
The focus throughout is on percussion (at the time I came across some weird tube sounding samples that resemble something from the Blue Man Group soundtrack, and I used them when arranging the drums on this track), aside from which the only melodic passages are creamy stabs and evolving pads which emerge half way into the track and drive it to the end.
While the track is not easy to categorize and fit into a concise set I always liked it and am happy to present it here. Enjoy.
Download: Far Off Course (mp3)Download: Far Off Course (wav)
We’re going waaaaaay back to 1993 (if my memory serves me right) for a track by the Bronx based band Sovereignty named Evil Mind. Formed by the guitarist/vocalist Derek Torres, Sovereignty was a speed/trash metal band influenced by the sounds of Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, and others. Joining Derek was Eddie Moore on bass, Chris Peloso on drums and Aleksandar Kolundzija on guitar.
Accompanying the music were dark lyrics, frequently centered on dangers and effects of drug abuse, and challenges of urban life. Written by Derek Torres, Evil Mind is in a way an odd choice for an introduction to Sovereignty but the track represents the band’s core sound well, both the fast riffs and groovy breaks. It also features a great bass solo by Eddie (R.I.P.).
Sovereignty went through a few lineup changes after the release of Utopia, which featured Evil Mind, and the band eventually morphed into Derek’s current project – My Situation.
Steady Tremor is a relatively recent track (given my studio drought of the last few years). It was produced in January of 2005, a time of year (fall/winter) when I am generally most productive in the studio. (I not a fan of sitting in a studio during the hot summer, and air-conditioners tend to interfere with the sound/air flow).
Anyhow, the track has a nice tribalesque groove and a choppy synth line bouncing over it. It also has a sibling, a jam titled The Ploy, which is a different idea dropped over the same beats. We’ll cover that one later, but for now, catch the tremor.
New Predicament is a smooth acid flavored track from 2001. While a straight forward track, it does have a breaky West Coast feel which makes it fun to play. Aside from the percussion and airy samples, most of the sounds were produced by the mighty Virus synth, some sampled and morphed further in the DAW, others recorded straight from the box and tweaked in real-time.
Listening to it after all these years I decided to slow it down a bit as the original was too fast by today’s standards. So I brought it down to 135bpm, and actually prefer it at this rate.
Once again, the wav download is available and recommended.
Download: New Predicament (mp3)Download: New Predicament (wav)
Carbon Face is a funky track that was picked up by the Netherlands-based Work Hard Play Hard label and released in 2006 on a self titled 3 track EP. The track was inspired by the techno-house sound of the early 2000’s pioneered by Italian producers like Marco Carola, Rino Cerrone, Gaetano Parisio and others, and is essentially a tribute to them. In recent years this flavor of techno has faded in favor of minimal sounds but I look forward to hearing it reappear in future genre mutations.
We’ll cover Gimmick and Thoroughbred (also on this EP) later, but I was pretty happy with how this release came together as each of the tracks features some pretty mangled samples but the focus on the groove is maintained throughout. As for Carbon Face itself, its based on a bass line played through a sampler using sounds from some expensive bass guitar sample CD which I bought and almost never used. Almost. But it ended up on this track and sort of made it worth it since I dig the track and it wouldn’t work without it. (Come to think of it, I think I used a different bass sound from the same sample CD on the track Homeage, covered here earlier this year.) The vocal sample is from another sample collection and its not as ambiguous as I it ought to have been, but its a good fit.
Anyhow, the release is available at BeatPort in any format you like.
If you are familiar with the track Hide And Seek, you know that its a voice-only track, vocoded and layered to perfection by the one and only Imogen Heap. This little missy just released her new album Ellipse and while I’m still trying to get into it, I remembered that a while ago I tried dropping some beats on Hide And Seek to see how that would sound. I quickly realized that the tempo of the track is very free-form and unless I busted out a real drumset and mics, getting this to work in a digital domain was going to require some heavy time adjustments.
Enter Ableton Live‘s sick Warp feature. (Time) warp works automatically by assessing the nature of the track and figuring out where stuff fits on its timeline as well as whether it should create a loop or sections that it attempts to play quantized (in time). It does a decent job but usually requires manual adjustments even for very straight-forward and repetitive dance tracks. But as expected, it had no idea how to deal with Imogen Heap’s beat-less jam. After manually tweaking words into time for a while without totally ruining the the vibe of the song, I dropped a few drum hits under it. (Admittedly, the first few verses could use further adjustments, but I got lazy.) The plan was to add other orchestration but that never happened (well, not yet). So I’m posting this here for you to listen to, drop in your editor and mess with further, or whatever. The BPM is 120.
I hope I don’t get in trouble with IH’s label or the miss directly. It might be wise to pull this one off asap since it may not last long.
Look for the updated remix at some point in the future, but for now here’s the first draft tagged as in progress.
Download: Hide and Seek (Montaz Mix)Download: Hide and Seek (Quantized by Montaz)
In the short list of my most favorite techno labels has to be Luxus, a short lived German imprint known for intelligent arrangements built on crispy, groovy beats and superbly put together. A few records by Plasmatics and Lower Level released on this label were frequently heard in my mixes, as well as of other New York based techno DJs including my boys DJ Eleven and Preston Space.
I bring up this label here since its sound, and the sound of Plasmatics and Lower Level in particular, was the inspiration for the track Decoy, available for download here. Decoy is another personal favorite – a raw, loopy track with a tribal feel and a thick revolving bass laid over polished drum sounds. The bass was (once again) played through the Virus B synth and processed with the RNC 1773 compressor. The sound is deep enough to sit alongside the kick drum even without side-chaining and ducking, though this technique could have perhaps given the track more of a pump. But it rolls nicely without it and the spotlight is on the sounds in the top end, of which the core is the highly compressed clap. I used this sample on a few tracks and, if I remember correctly, it came from a Luxus record! Aside from the percussion samples, present are a couple of other classic Techno elements – the TR909 snare drum and ride cymbal.
Fake House is a rare house track of the bunch. It sort of caught me by surprise and took all of about 4 hours to arrange. It has a very raw, sample-based vibe which makes it a fun track to play (and play with) in an early or late set.
The creamy bass line was played on the Nord Lead keyboard, and is joined by a reversed electric piano riff and a couple of other mangled samples. The main beat was summed and reversed in a couple of breaks to add to the odd feel.
Produced 6 years ago (almost to the day), Battery is an alternate version of Alkaline, a track released in 2003 on one of New York’s premier techno labels: Gotham Grooves. Alkaline was a B-side on the Funk Matter EP, which featured remixes of the title track by Agent Orange and Valentino Kanzyani and will be covered here more directly later, but for now we’ll just focus on the Alkaline‘s gentler sibling.
Unlike the released version which has a darker, mangled vibe, Battery is a funkier jam with a free style bassline. Until now, only a couple of select few DJs had access to this rare mix. Now you do too.
Download: Battery (mp3)Download: Battery (wav)
Btw, you can hear and even Download Alkaline and Funk Matter on BeatPort!
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